CO-OP invited Lakhon Komnit Organization (LKO) to produce a theatrical response to the themes of looting, restitution and paradigms of conservation and display. LKO’s grassroots basis connected the project with a Cambodian constituency who might not ordinarily be reached by its research, nor included in the broader discourse on looting and restitution. Read below for more about LKO’s methodology and watch three short monologues developed from the workshops and screened as part of an event at SM Art Centre during CO-OP’s Year 3 Seminar.
About Lakhon Komnit Organization
Lakhon Komnit Organization, meaning “Thinking Theatre,” is a Battambang-based grassroots Lakhon Niyeay (Spoken Theatre) group, working to increase inclusion, develop critical thinking, and transform conflict. As Cambodia’s leading practitioner of Forum Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed, LKO’s participatory methodologies engage trainees and audience members as active agents of change. Their plays are grounded in personal stories, developed with affected communities, and performed by grassroots actors. LKO’s interactive performances, where audience members can interrupt the play and replace actors on-stage, facilitate cross-hierarchy critical dialogue on sensitive social issues, and develop viable, sustainable solutions for positive change.
Formed in 2017 and registered as an NGO in 2019, LKO’s program has grown to encompass play creation, training courses, touring productions, and participatory action research, working in partnership with a wide range of marginalised communities, local and national authorities, and CSOs.
Framing and methodology
LKO conducted participatory research, with three separate half-day workshops engaging high school and university students, middle aged community members with experience of violence and discrimination, and elderly people. A total of 34 participants took part. This participatory co-creation process resulted in the creation of three theatrical monologues, filmed for further dissemination during the CO-OP seminar and beyond online.
Participatory Workshops
Technical terminology about restitution had the potential to alienate the research participants, prompt self-censorship, trigger deference to ‘educated people of status,’ or invoke repetition of received ideas. As such, the workshops were framed around the themes of “items of personal importance” and “departure and return.” While avoiding explicit reference to “restitution,” each workshop began with a transparent explanation that LKO was seeking community input to inform the creation of a new theatre piece, and confirming consent from the participants to use their contributions to this end. Three main questions were used to frame a qualitative enquiry into embodied knowledge and lived experience of the seminar themes: What object(s) have value to you? How do you use and conserve them? What are your experiences of separation and return?
The participatory co-creation methods used were:
- Image Theatre: Groups of participants made still images using their bodies to represent: the most important thing in Cambodia, the most important thing in your home, and processes of taking care of that object.
- Individual drawings: Participants drew the object of highest personal value to them, offering additional information in a whole group discussion.
- Role play: Three group members role-played as people who had left Cambodia. Remaining participants collectively decided the reasons for their departure, and prepared a welcome for their return, which they subsequently enacted.
Methodological adaptations were made with the elderly group, with group discussion replacing the physically demanding Image Theatre, and recollections used in place of drawing.
All workshops concluded with a transparent explanation of the link between the session and the broader topic of restitution, along with re-confirming whether participants consented for their contributions to be used to create a piece of theatre on this theme.
Creating a theatrical response
A small team of theatre makers from LKO reflected on the research workshop findings, identifying overarching themes and observed details which were particularly visually or emotionally striking. These wove together to create three monologues, each representing a core theme and incorporating pertinent details from participants’ contributions. These are not verbatim or documentary pieces, yet retain a strong basis in the reality of lived experiences of objects of personal value, and processes of departure and return.
The Monologues
Performed by Chen Srey Sor
Written by Chen Srey Sor and Pov Sovan
Directed by Chhit Chanphireak (Hou)
Filming by Poy Studio
Producer and Editorial Advisor Bonny Coombe
Special thanks Chhoun Lina
Performed by Kun Sokhoeun
Written by Khim Chomnan and Som Arth Sreymao
Directed by Chhit Chanphireak (Hou)
Filming by Poy Studio
Producer and Editorial Advisor Bonny Coombe
Special thanks Souch Seik
Performed by Pov Sovan
Written and directed by Chhit Chanphireak
Filmed by Poy Studio
Producer and Editorial Advisor Bonny Coombe
Special thanks Prach Roun, Ouk Kosal, and the elderly community of Anh Chanh village, Ochar Commune, Battambang
Detailed findings from the workshops and thematic analysis
Youth seeking individuation: Younger participants identified specific items given by specific people at a specific time, such as teddy bears, notebooks and simple jewellery, as providing a source of personalised emotional and psychological strength. Conservation processes mentioned included keeping objects in close physical proximity, frequently by the head of the bed during sleep, or taken with one in a bag during the day.
Elders seeking collective harmony: An unsurprising yet nonetheless significant theme emerging from elders’ responses was the emphasis on collectivism and familial affection. Elders viewed themselves as a facilitator of connection and the mediator of relational harmony between the living and the dead, responsible for maintaining spiritual balance in the home via the conservation and display of images of ancestors, the Buddha, and the use of these objects in ritual practices.
Care, survival and independence: Survival was a core literal and metaphorical theme for the two older groups, with money and medicines highlighted by elders, and objects such as shelters, rice pans and mobility devices described with heavy emotion by the middle aged group. Conservation consisted in concealing items of monetary value (including from one’s children), and diligent maintenance to prevent deterioration of items of functional and symbolic value.
Melancholia: A melancholic longing for a lost past, the long term pursuit of objects previously unobtainable, and the use of objects to “bring back” and preserve historical relationships and experiences were themes which echoed across all age groups.
Processes of resolving distance and synthesizing the return: In role play, returnees were welcomed with foods particular to a family, giving and receiving spiritual protection through blessings and offerings to ancestors, and verbal narrations to re-orient them to a changed physical and relational landscape. Many of the middle aged group had lived experience of family separation and displacement, including as refugees, and these role plays were particularly emotionally charged.
IMPACT
The research workshops explored restitution via a circuitous route – through items of personal importance, the care of them, and the return of long-missed loved ones – in order to open up participants’ responses to the topic. Each research workshop closed with an explicit explanation of its relationship to the CO-OP seminar on restitution, a revelation which was enthusiastically received and prompted several witness testimonies about looting. Anecdotes were shared about living gods encased in statues and amulets which behaved in surprising ways, disappearing from a safe place and reappearing in the beak of a hen, being found at first in a muddy puddle, or repeatedly evading attempts at theft.
“I’ve read about restitution in the news and I never imagined I could have an opportunity to contribute anything to that. It’s amazing to be able to participate, offer my ideas and have my voice be part of that work,” youth participant.
“If there was any opportunity, I would love to make merit by giving a donation to an event to welcome back the antiquities. If I knew where the antiquity would be installed, I might even take my own treasured items which are valuable and which I have hidden until now in a place that not even my children know of. I would take them to put them in the presence of the god statue,” elderly participant.
CONSIDERATIONS FOR FUTURE WORK
The monologues and the workshop findings which informed them highlight strong grassroots desire for involvement in the process of return of looted antiquities. Yet currently, restitution is perceived as both distant and exclusive, occurring abroad or in Phnom Penh and involving only people of status. This suggests that for restitution to be socially inclusive and culturally grounded, it must proactively incorporate the voices and experiences of ordinary citizens.
The large-scale project of restitution is inevitably also a process of building or reaffirming national identity, via assertions of history and reclaimed ownership. Inviting personal histories to be part of this process might allow the restitution of looted antiquities to create a space between the dual forces of nationalism and tourism, in which a more nuanced form of cultural ownership might emerge. Within this, the community relationships key to a strong social fabric might also be restored.
Overall, Lakhon Komnit’s work on this topic as part of the CO-OP year three seminar highlights the importance of valuing the small voices in history’s grand narrative, so that the restoration of objects of national ownership is felt and owned throughout modern Cambodian society.
All photographs are © Lakhon Komnit Organization unless otherwise stated and are not to be reproduced without permission.